Los Angeles Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig covers his eyes in the dugout during the seventh inning of Game 2 of the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013, in St. Louis.

Nightmares this awful don’t just randomly arrive out of nowhere in the middle of a still, quiet night.

They don’t just assault with no explanation, jarring you awake in a cold sweat and with a racing heart and spooked into keeping a light on — just in case.

And they certainly aren’t real.

They can’t be, right?

No, the kind of remorseless horror the Dodgers came fact-to-face with this weekend in St. Louis is the scripted kind. Silly stories conjured up in the morbid minds of the Steven Kings and Dean Koontzs and H.P. Lovecrafts of the world.

There is no other explanation for what happened here in Games 1 and 2 of a National League Championship Series in which the Dodgers sent their two best pitchers to the mound and fully expected to return home carrying a 2-0 lead — or at worst, a 1-1 split.

Only to stumble into a self-dug grave excavated by ineptness with runners in scoring position and curious managerial decisions and a key passed ball by an otherwise sure-handed catcher and injuries and base-running misfortune.

“Never,” is how Adrian Gonzalez explained any sort of inclination the Dodgers would drop both games here.

But they did.

In the process they wasted two dazzling pitching performances by Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw in a pair of tight losses that send them scurrying back to L.A. down 0-2 to the reticent Cardinals.

And in desperate need of a miracle.

“One pitch at a time,” reliever J.P. Howell said.

But with injuries mounting and Hyun-Jin Ryu and Ricky Nolasco up next in the rotation, is anyone comfortable the sort of lightening strike the Dodgers need is forthcoming?

Now that Hanley Ramirez is among the growing list of walking wounded and Andre Ethier may not be able to play two days in a row and Yasiel Puig can’t fight the voices in his head telling him to swing at every pitch and a clutch hit is about as hard to come by as the winning Powerball numbers, does any confidence remain that the Dodgers can fight their way back?

“We still believe,” Gonzalez said.

Or, as Kershaw said: “We’re in a hole now, but we’re not out of it. We have three games at home to get right back into this thing.”

Perhaps, but the way the Dodgers are cowering with runners in scoring position — they were 0 for 6 in Game 2 after going 1 for 10 in Game 1, only waning faith remains that they can suddenly find October magic in their bats.

“You flip the page,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly urged.

To what, though?

The Dodgers came up with runs in just one of 22 innings in St. Louis and completed their last 19 innings without plating a run.

Is that going to change with St. Louis ace Adam Wainright on deck for Game 3?

And is Puig capable of fighting out of the thick NLCS quicksand he’s plummeting in — when his own baseball adolescence and the brilliance of a Cardinals pitching staff melding with the intellect of catcher Yadier Molina conspires so spectacularly against him?

Puig struck out four times Saturday and is 0 for 10 with six strikeouts through the first two games.

With the Dodgers ravaged by injuries, the last thing they needed was for Puig to show his age.

But right now he’s playing like the 22-year-old rookie he is, and feeling the pressure.

“Obviously he’s frustrated,” Mattingly said.

The Cardinals, sensing Puig’s helplessness at the plate, happily invited him to the batter’s box with the bases loaded in the top of the sixth — even intentionally walking Gonzalez to get to him — and punched him out to help snuff out the Dodgers’ best opportunity to break through against Michael Wacha.

A month ago could you even have imagined someone intentionally walking a batter to deal with Puig?

But with the rookie battling so desperately against himself, the Cardinals have turned his frustration against him.

“Yadier back there does a good job of yo-yoing him, showing him enough breaking balls and showing him the fastball. And it’s back to the breaking ball,” Mattingly said. “So Yadier is doing a nice job as far as yo-yoing him back and forth and keeping him in the rocking chair. That’s where I think we see his inexperience kind of come up, how to handle what’s going on and what he’s looking for.”

But it’s not just Puig; it’s a decimated lineup incapable thus far of getting a big hit.

And with each wasted opportunity, Kershaw and Greinke get pushed further and further onto an unforgiving tight-rope.

“You have to take advantage of your opportunities, for sure,” Kershaw said.

But they haven’t.

And now they return home to Los Angeles nearly completely buried in an 0-2 hole, angry and frustrated after a weekend set up so beautifully concluded so agonizingly.

“Definitely frustrated at the fact we put ourselves in this situation by not hitting.” Gonzalez said.

And wondering if they can find the magic needed to make this a series.

Vincent Bonsignore is an NFL columnist for the Southern California News Group. Having covered the Los Angeles sports scene for more than two decades, Bonsignore has emerged as one of the leading voices on the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, the NFL and NFL relocation.

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